In a column for the conservative publication Human Events, the former House Speaker takes aim at Pelosi’s press conference last week, during which she said the CIA did not tell her in 2002 that it used the aggressive interrogation technique of waterboarding. She went on to allege the CIA routinely misleads Congress.

“She charged that the CIA, deliberately and as a matter of policy, violated the law by lying to Congress,” Gingrich writes in the column. “And with that allegation, Speaker Pelosi disqualified herself from the office she holds.”

“Speaker Pelosi has damaged America’s safety,” Gingrich also writes. “She’s made America less secure by sending a signal to the men and women defending our country that they can’t count on their leaders to defend them.”

Indeed all those things are true. And, yes, she should resign. But lets be honest… she won’t and the Dems won’t do a thing to her. So really the political hacks used as human shields surrounding Pelosi got this one right: Continue reading “Gingrich to Pelosi: Resign”

NOW everyone feel free to pile on this liar. NOW we have good evidence that she did, in fact, make this up. NOW AND ONLY NOW.

Michelle Malkin’s first instincts were correct on this one (and Ace and Allah too) but I still disagree with people’s first reaction to this story and some of Malkin’s implications. The fact that Ashley Todd turned out to be a liar changes nothing. While it shows that Malkin has good instincts for hoaxes, it doesn’t make me feel much better about the way she conducted coverage of this story.

I do not regret giving the benefit of the doubt to these claims. I need convincing evidence reported by credible sources before I am comfortable with piling on somebody. Whenever somebody reports being attacked I will give them the benefit of the doubt as it is the right thing to do.

But, with that said, I think we can all agree that what this woman has done is disgusting and horrible. Her actions have served to hurt any future victim of any assault, political in nature or not. The only thing she has done with this sick act is add to the doubt that people inherently face when reporting crimes. Thus more and more pressure and criticism will be heaped on people who are telling the truth about being the victim of crime (not to mention those who defend their reports).

“In a news conference on Friday, police said Todd told them she doesn’t know why she lied. She said everything started snowballing.

Police said there was no robbery or suspected mugger. However, Todd did tell police she does not know how the “B” got on her face, but suspects she might have done it to herself.

Police said Todd came clean after returning to the station so police could draw a composite sketch.

Police are conferring with the District Attorney’s Office on the issue. At the very least, Todd could be charged with filing a false police report.

Although police said they did find out that the woman has a history of mental problems.”

UPDATE: You know what the second worst part of all of this is? (the worst part being the drop it will cause in benefit of the doubt towards people who report being attacked) The Kos kids are going to feel like their instinct to crucify anybody on the right who reports a politically motivated crime right off the bat is completely justified. Awesome job, Ashley Todd, thanks for all the *#$@ you’ve pulled.

So, in case you haven’t heard yet, Ashley Todd is the McCain staffer who reported being robbed and then attacked in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last night because she had McCain sticker on her car . I covered the attack and subsequent reactions here.

Not surprisingly there are some new developments this morning. From everything credible I can gather there isn’t anything that has changed my mind one way or the other. I am still giving her the benefit of the doubt on this because I still haven’t seen anything to disprove her story beyond speculation but you be the judge.

“She told police the man then sat on her chest, pinning both her hands down with his knees and used what she believed was a dull knife with a roughly 5-inch blade to carve the B…”(via Hotair)

“She also indicated she was sexually assaulted as well. She indicated that when he had her on the ground he put his hand up her blouse and started fondling her. But other than that, she says she doesn’t remember anything else. So we’re adding a sexual assault to this as well,”

“Meanwhile, according to authorities, Todd did take a polygraph test; however, those test results were not released.” (there is some conflict over the polygraph, the first report I saw said she volunteered but some others have said the police wanted her to take the polygraph to clear up inconsistencies)

So, yes, there continues to be room for reasonable doubt and “healthy skepticism”. However, there is certainly nothing here that proves anything. Yes, her story has changed some from her initial report but I certainly hope that isn’t the test for whether an attack happened or not. After all if you’re beaten up and even knocked unconscious, as Ashley Todd claims, there are bound to be some inconsistencies. It happens quite often as the Pittsburgh Police have noted. And beyond that I don’t see any more credible information that should lead to more doubts.

But beyond all of this it seems to me that Michelle Malkin has moved beyond the area of “healthy skepticism”, as Ed Morrissey calls it (he has been the most balanced on this by the way), into the area of bad speculation.

Let me just say that I understand Michelle’s initial caution and if this turns out to be a hoax I will condemn this woman in the harshest way. However, Michelle Malkin is reaching in a way that disturbs me. She now seems to be implying that the fact that Todd is either making her Facebook, twitter, and myspace accounts private or deleting them all together adds to doubt. Which is insane, I mean, I know that Malkin is used to getting lots of Hate mail but, if what Todd is saying is true and were in her situation I would delete or make private my online accounts to so that I’m not flooded with nut jobs threatening me.

Plus Malkin is now linking to a site which implies that a song lyric from a popular song on Ashley Todd’s myspace page (from the 17th) somehow proves she made the whole thing up. Right…

I guess the lesson we should all learn from this is that if you are attacked you’d better be in front of a video camera (and it should probably be 4 or 5 HD cameras just to be sure), you’d better take detailed notes of everything that happens (and you should probably make sure a notary is there to authenticate them), you’d better make sure your assailant beats and cuts you in a way that will seem appropriate to bloggers (in fact you should probably have a blogger check your wounds before the attacker leaves in case you need the attacker to cut you or hit you in a more “believable” way), you’d better make sure and get at least 5 doctors to look at you on the scene and probably about 10 more at the hospital (oh and make sure the blogger from earlier is there to check you out too), and, of course even after you’ve done all these things, you’d better expect the bloggers to say you liar anyway.